Monday, 12 October 2026
By Andy Weddington
MARINES - COED, WOMEN IN COMBAT - AND SUICIDE
No female would be permitted to do 90 percent of the things with which I am familiar, simply because, in many cases, men would not stand for it. – Colonel John Ripley, USMC
The girl at 18 is basically a woman.
The boy, still a boy at 18, is five to eight years from physical peak - manhood.
The boy is 5-6 inches taller and 30-35 pounds heavier than the girl.
The boy’s muscle mass is nearly twice girls.
The boy’s arms and legs are bigger, longer, and stronger.
The boy’s hands and wrists are bigger.
The boy has greater grabbing, gripping, pulling, punching, pushing, shaking, squeezing, stabbing, thrusting, twisting, and yanking power.
The boy’s bare hands are lethal weapons; that grow more lethal.
The girl does enjoy a necessary evolutionary advantage - twice as much body fat.
The boy, beyond size and strength, is superior in speed, explosive power, endurance, durability, and when pushed to extremes is capable of practically superhuman feats.
Bewilderingly, today biological males compete straight up against biological females. Controversial? No, idiotic. The female stands no chance.
Radio personality, sports enthusiast, and entrepreneur Clay Travis, to prove the absurdity of pitting males against females, publicly proposed a winner-takes-all $10 million prize for a basketball game between the current WNBA champions and a high school boys’ team of his choice. No response from the league nor team. So, Mr. Travis amended the challenge to an 8th grade boys’ team. Again, not a peep.
That an under 15 (years of age) boys team soundly beat the United States women’s national soccer team in a scrimmage foretells the outcome of a basketball game. Mr. Travis, the league, the players, and anyone with a lick of sense knows it.
In his ever-relevant book ‘The Soldier’s Load and The Mobility of a Nation’ infantryman Army Colonel S.L.A. Marshall - WWI, WWII, Korea - proposed a soldier’s combat load of 1/3 body weight.
Presuming male weight of 160 lbs., about 53 pounds is max load. An infantryman, I know the reality is considerably heavier.
Presuming female weight of 130 lbs., about 43 pounds is max load. Back and pelvic breaking is her reality.
However, with coed, an infantryman is an infantryman. Each “man” is expected to carry their pack. And more - e.g., crew-swerved weapons, weapons components, ammunition, etc.
Men shouldering gear, equipment, and weapons women physically cannot is not teambuilding.
Handicap is what it is. A liability. And during dangerous training and battle any liability is risk - of failing mission and losing lives.
In previous commentary I’ve mentioned General Robert H. Barrow. In 1981, the Commandant of the Marine Corps, he spoke to U.S. Army Command and Staff War College students (men and women) in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
An infantryman in three wars, he did not speak about tactics nor strategy. His theme was that which transcends times of war and peace - people, ethos, and leadership. Questions followed remarks. A brave student stood and asked about the rumor of gender-integrated training in the Marine Corps.
General Barrow confirmed there was attempt to integrate men and women - coed training - at The Basic School (TBS). The experiment intermingling newly commissioned officers failed miserably. He said there were two options: 1. Lower requirements; 2. Segregate training.
Commonsense prevailed. Training was segregated. He wrapped up his answer assuring the class, and the Marine Corps, they’d not be trying integrated training again.
Well, TBS is again coed (has been for some years). Why? Not because females, during a mere few decades, have evolved to be the physical equal of males, but for pressure. The pressures of agendas, policies, and laws that have nothing to do with a lethal military force and our national security.
Any chance coed is, in truth, going any better?
For option 1. Lower requirements, yes, but fallacy.
And coed has infected Marine Corps recruit depots. Male and female recruits, drill instructors (DIs), officers up to the commanding general is ongoing. Men training boys and girls. Women training girls and boys. What could possibly be going right?
Of course, Option 1. Lower requirements is the only way for coed training to work.
Reality is boys need strong, capable, demanding men to emulate, to lead them. Fathers are one thing. But DIs, men, charged with making a basic Marine demand that which a father, and mother, loves their son (or daughter) too much to require. Girls need the same from women. Leadership by example! To deny boys and girls their ultimate challenge is to cheat both and instill false confidence. And, ultimately, to make America vulnerable.
A plaque, Marine Corps emblem atop, as reminder with fair warning was once prominently on display at Parris Island. Unknown to me if still. If not, it ought to be. And grace a wall in every training battalion headquarters and on every squadbay quarterdeck:
LET’S BE DAMNED SURE
THAT NO MAN’S GHOST
WILL EVER SAY – “IF YOUR
TRAINING PROGRAM
HAD ONLY DONE ITS JOB.”
During last week’s ‘State of the Force’ SecWar said the gender-neutral standard is the male standard.
Great! Finally. Then why is there coed?
Colonel John Ripley testified before Congress about assignments of women in the military the year after General Barrow’s 1991 appearance addressing women in combat.
The colonel spoke directly and practically about the limits of a woman’s strength. Much of his examples centered on the weakness in a woman’s hands - unable to do basic things handling weapons that is of ease to men. Too, he shared gruesome details of torture, and the way female prisoners would be horribly mistreated.
General Barrow and Colonel Ripley died within a few days of one another. By no means ghosts, their relevancy is, more so really, as ever. Divisions of Marines, and warriors not Marine, echo their commonsense and wisdom. Time for those Divisions and brothers and sisters to stand and be accounted for.
To be fair, I am duty-bound to mention the pro coed and women in combat agenda is backed by collegial arguments. Though plausible, not so all that much to military readiness. From eliminating perceptions of inequality to mirroring operational reality to fostering mutual respect to somehow strengthening unit cognitive problem-solving goes the laboratory brewed groupthink. The working groups and boardrooms byproducts are better practiced in the corporate world. Will leave it at that.
Women, as %, by service (source dependent but generally):
Air Force 21.7
Navy 21.1
Space Force 19.1
Army 16.0
Marine Corps 10.0
Consider if male. That the hard bottom line is readiness and everything must strengthen lethality, what’s the tipping point?
This is not about marginalizing, whatsoever, the heart and spirit and courage of women in uniform. Not at all. Nor to diminish the unique value women contribute to warfighting. I know plenty of women doing critical work I am incapable of doing. On their behalf, I can and do adamantly and unapologetically attest. But heart and spirit and effort and courage and want are not combat replacements for strength, speed, stamina, and need of our nation.
Boys and girls negotiating the same PT fields, obstacle and confidence courses, etc., is just nonsense. A lie.
Integrity is a Marine leadership trait. Courage, too, is a trait - integrity’s complement. Obedience, not a leadership trait, to wrong is cowardice. In peace, cowardice destroys credibility. In war, cowardice is a firing squad offense.
Oh, before closing, not to forget male-bonding - that psychological phenomenon unique to men. It’s real. Male being the operative word. Women can’t do it. And male-bonding has had as much to do with U.S. Marines prevailing in combat as any other measurable variable. Deliberately destroying a warfighting asset, a lethal weapon of untold power, is idiotic. Sheer madness!
Selfish want, not selfless national need, is the malignant cancer driving Marine coed and assignment of women to combat units.
It’s institutional suicide. STOP it!
How? Call your Congressman and Senator. Don’t whine. Demand, respectfully. And stay in the fight.
Semper Fidelis.
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